“How do you persuade a woman to wear a two-piece suit who is not the German Chancellor?” asked Demna Gvasalia, who has spent the last six months looking into the Balenciaga archive and methodically thinking through how the essence of Cristóbal Balenciaga can be relevant for a modern woman. Result One, the first look: a gray flannel two-button jacket and a slit pencil skirt, in which the shoulders are slightly curved and set fractionally forward, and the hips minimally padded. “It was the posture and the attitude, and Cristóbal’s way of working with the body I found interesting,” said Gvasalia, while admitting to nerves in the buildup to his debut. “Cristóbal was about the tailoring. I wanted a new way of finding that elegance for today, in a 360-degree way.”

Gvasalia wasn’t just talking about the profile created by the forward-leaning technical cut of the coats and jackets, the whoosh of volume in the fronts of skirts, and the inward-angled stiletto heels. This was a “profiling” in a much bigger sense—a pragmatic, intelligent, sweeping analysis of whole categories of what women might want to wear on a daily basis, if they care about fashion—or, rather, about dressing well. The effect was a surging visual high for women of many ages who saw, among the glittering earrings, taut ski pants, jeweled stilettos, oversize puffers, padded scarves, soberly chic checked sheaths and multi-floral dresses, an inspiringly whole and succinct set of wardrobe desires answered.